#3 of 6 new coins that Mrs stevex6 doesn't know about

Doug, I have a basic knowledge of using the British Museum(BM) of Roman Republican (RR) coins online catalog but not the advanced section.

For the Calpurnius Piso coin the Crawford# is 408 and in the BM online you search for 408.1.* and thumbnails of 336 of the coins will appear. Clicking on a thumbnail will bring up a medium size image of the Obv. with detailed info. Clicking on the medium size image will bring up a page filling image of Obv and Rev. My confusion came at this page filling image which above the Rev. image had the words "Previous X of 336 Next" but at the left corner had the word "Back", which I hadn't noticed. Pressing the "Previous" took me to a previous Page filling image instead of back to the medium size image with all the details. Pressing the "Back" was the only way to get back to the medium size image.

This is getting pretty wordy and I hope not too confusing. The way i enjoy using it is to go the page filling image of the Obv and Rev., and start cycling through 336 coins. It is very impressive to see the Obv and Rev. filling up the whole screen. When I want detail, I press the "Back" and I am at the medium sized image with the detail.


Crawford breaks down 408 into 408a(Laureate) and 408b(taenia or fillet) heads. Search the BM for 408/1a brings up 85 thumbnails of the Laureate; search the BM for 408/1b brings up 245 thumbnails for the Taenia or fllet. The total is 330, which is 6 less than the 336 original; the difference I believe is due to fouree's being included in the grand total.

You may be familiar with all this, so I wonder for what specifically are you searching for in the BM RR?

The BM of RR coins has 12,000 coins and 5000 were donated in 2002 by Charles Hersh, so the on line version has almost twice the # of coins in the 3 vol BMRRC. The images are excellent and I enjoy noting the nice toning on the older coins(the notes include the year the BM acquired the coin); I am not a great fan of brilliant, lustrous ancient coins. This is just an excellent reference, although it takes practice to use it.

BTW, your online ancient coin pages are among the best for ancient coin collectors. I especially have liked the section on grading.

Ron

 

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Thanks. I also have had better luck with the larger image pages. The problem is that you have to know the Crawford number to use the resource. The small thumbs are not legible enough on my screen to be of any use. I hope they post their Imperials someday.

 

This is the kind of coin that brings collectors to ancient coins because it is a coin with a story to tell. You have well described it as an early form of price control. And even with the chip, the main devices are clear. I especially like the rev., with the quaestors looking at each other, obviously in a discussion, kind of a picture of ancient history. I like the toning also.

Thanks for showing it. One of these was in an auction last month and I was interested but didn't bid. I'm more of a looker than a bidder.

Ron

 

Can someone explain how this coin helped fulfill the requirements if the law? A semis and a triens is 10/12 of an as (1/2+1/3 or 6 uncia plus 4uncia). I have no trouble seeing how such a price might make it nice to have minor coins to make change (perhaps a hexas so you could make change for an as presented to buy a modius). This broken denarius is about 10/12 of a whole coin so dreamers can say it was broken on purpose to buy 16 modii of grain but this really makes no sense. At that price a denarius would buy 19.2 modii hardly making me think that it would be a high demand coin for even multiple transactions. Who has a handle of Roman economics and can explain why the Senate thought it necessary to issue this coin?